Walk for Wishes

On Sunday my family and I will be participating in the Walk for Wishes. We’ll get to the Baltimore zoo around 8 or so and after the walk we’ll check out the animals. Evie especially wants to see the penguins. The older kids are excited to miss church, but sometimes church isn’t in church, you know? Sometimes church is about serving others and that’s what the Make-A-Wish foundation is all about: granting wishes for kids who have a life-threatening illness or condition.

Our story is personal. Evelyn was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 2 1/2 years old. After the initial “emergency” status of the situation descended to “high alert”, the social worker at the hospital helped us fill out the paperwork for a wish. The Wish ambassadors came to our house to meet Evelyn and the family. When asked, Evelyn went with the age appropriate response and said she wanted to meet the Disney princesses. The Wish people were ready to get us packed, but my husband and I were too tired to think about going anywhere. There was the logistics of traveling with a family of 6, Evie was right in the middle of treatment and had a complicated chemo and surgery schedule. She had to have regular surgery to inject chemo directly into the spinal fluid. And, there was the ever present danger of her compromised immune system. She could spike a fever and we’d be too far from our hospital where everyone knew what size needle to access her port-a-cath and how to take care of a pediatric oncology patient. How to take care of our precious daughter.

The Wish people told us firmly that we needed to use the Wish. That we needed a break. That everything was set — we would spent Evelyn’s fourth birthday in Disney. The Wish people didn’t forget Evie’s twin sister either. Evelyn was always the special guest, but Sylvia was taken care of too. We all were. And, the Wish people were right. That week away as a family showed us how run down we’d gotten, how grim and plodding. We returned to Maryland refreshed, full of energy, and ready to fight again. We also had a ton of pictures and an invaluable family experience with all six of us.

We went from this:

Evie after port replacement (due to infection)

To this:

And this: And this:

I hate fundraising — asking friends and neighbors and strangers for money — but this is important. Make-A-Wish isn’t about going on an imaginably fun trip, it’s about being taken care of by a network of volunteers who understand that each moment counts. We were fortunate enough to be taken care of and we’d like to pass that along to other families, the ones coming behind us who are just now finding out about their own health crisis, about their own beloved child.

Please consider donating $5 or $10. The walk is this Saturday. If you care to donate, here’s the link: